Deep focus

There are two kinds of work, and they are not worth the same. One kind demands full concentration and creates something hard to replace. The other can be done with half your attention while you watch something else. Founders who achieve a lot with little are almost always good at protecting the first kind from being eaten by the second.

Deep versus shallow work

Deep work is tasks that require you to think without interruption: writing a proposal that lands, designing a feature, solving a hard problem, planning strategy. It is tiring, but this is where the real value is created. Shallow work is everything else: answering routine messages, updating spreadsheets, coordinating small things. It has to be done too, but it is easy to replace and asks little of you.

The trap is that shallow work feels productive. You clear the inbox and feel efficient, yet none of it moved the company. A day full of shallow work can look busy and still be lost. The goal is not to eliminate the shallow, but to make sure it doesn't crowd out the deep.

Time blocking and focus sessions

The simplest way to protect deep work is to give it a fixed place in your calendar. Set aside a block — say two hours in the morning — where you do only one demanding task. Treat the block like a meeting you can't move. Once it is in the calendar, you don't have to decide anew each day, and others can see the time is taken.

Within the block it helps to work in sessions. Choose a length that suits you — many people manage forty to sixty minutes of full concentration before the mind needs a break. Work with focus, then take a short, real break where you stand up and look away from the screen, and start another session. The point is not a particular recipe but the rhythm: focus, break, focus. Picture a developer who splits the morning into two forty-five-minute sessions. She often gets more done before lunch than she used to in a whole day of constant interruptions.

Remove distractions and task switching

The biggest thief of deep focus is not long interruptions but the many small ones. Every time a notification pulls your attention away, your brain spends several minutes getting back to where it was. Do that ten times an hour and you never go deep at all.

The solution is to make interruptions harder. Turn off notifications while you work deeply. Put your phone out of reach. Close the tabs you don't need. Decide that messages and email are checked at set times, not every couple of minutes. You lose nothing important in two hours without notifications, but you gain the ability to actually finish a thought.

Protect your best hours

Everyone has a few hours in the day when their mind works best. For some it is early morning, for others late evening. These hours are the most valuable resource you have, and they should be spent on the deepest work — not on email and meetings that could just as easily come later.

Notice when you are sharpest and build the day around it. Fill your best hours with what demands the most, and push the shallow work to the times when you are sluggish anyway. A founder who spends the morning on invoicing and the afternoon on strategy has often turned the day upside down.

Do this now

Find your next working day in the calendar. Set aside a block of at least ninety minutes during the hours you know you are sharpest, and write in the one demanding task you will do then. Turn off notifications for the whole block. Put your phone in another room before you start.